


Strands of Fist and Bone

by tiltedsyllogism



Series: wits on tap remixes [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Divination, Friendship, Gen, M/M, Molly Hooper POV, Platonic Cuddling, Poetry, Post-Reichenbach, Remix, Tarot, Vignettes, Wits On Tap Challenge, post-tab, though I'm not sure that actually matters so much in this remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-22
Updated: 2016-04-22
Packaged: 2018-06-03 17:01:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6618874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiltedsyllogism/pseuds/tiltedsyllogism
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was always a complex equation of give and take, but the currency was different every time. Four fragments in the history of Molly and Sherlock. </p><p>A poetry remix of <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/users/Amythe3lder/pseuds/Amythe3lder">Amythe3lder</a>'s lovely series <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/2477069/chapters/5494676">Thursdays</a>, written for Wits on Tap 2016.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strands of Fist and Bone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Amythe3lder](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amythe3lder/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Thursdays](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2477069) by [Amythe3lder](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amythe3lder/pseuds/Amythe3lder). 



1.  
you would have said “livers,”  
but it was touch, touch that  
began not in bodies, or hands, but in  
the delicate movements of knowing.

You swallow up surfaces  
take them in, break them down, keen  
to boil them down to boxes

but still you are surprised by the undertow.

I know you.  
my heart knew you before my hands,  
before you saw what I saw,  
before you saw me seeing  
I knew.

Now you know what it is to be seen.

Our eyes, our hearts, point elsewhere,  
outward  
but they begin here.

 

2.  
After—  
you traded white for black  
and the friends in the crosshairs for the one who saw  
and I had framed my own life in black-white lies to protect you  
you still did not trust me, after.

But this was also before,  
when your eyes still ran to surfaces,  
before you knew the sting of their sharp edges.

“I see you,” I said. 

Trust is not your native habitat.  
We are in my home, not yours.  
I will give you all I have in the coin of my own realm.

“I see you,” I said,  
“you bastard.”

“Seeing, that’s your watch,” he would say  
if he were here.  
But you can’t see him, now,  
and he has stopped looking, now.

“I’ll look out for him,” I say.

 

3.  
You know that I know better,  
But you say it anyway:  
“Results.”

The cards do not draw us a map of the world,  
Only a map of our own insides.

“Focus,” you say.  
“Unfocus,” I say.

Results do not matter  
when you are here to learn the questions.  
You open your mouth and pause, precise,  
intent on exact formulation.

But in an expanding world  
filled with love and paradox  
and peppered with dying stars  
is any science exact?

 

4.  
Your eyes wild, unfocused, because –  
A case, a crisis, there is always a reason  
to paint pictures of rationality on the blurred screen.

No.

“No,” I say, aloud  
this time, because  
not all of the worry  
not all of the bloodshot eyes and bruised sleepless nights  
are yours.

“Nothing is mine,” you say.

He is, I tell you. He is.

Your eyes are mapped over.  
A thousand filaments of planning,  
a thousand tiny streaks of sacrifice and abasement,  
stand like a screen between you and what I know.  
You cannot see it  
but you see me.

Together, we open the door.

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from “Murder of One” by Counting Crows, whose lyrics (mostly from the amazing album August and Everything After) have supplied Amythe3lder with all of her epigraphs for the fic I’m remixing. The next line, after the title of this fic, is “curiosity, kitten, doesn’t have to mean you’re on your own,” which has its own resonance.


End file.
